It's an uneven situation, of course. The leaders of many of the SA unions have been terribly weak when faced with pressure from ANC politicos. The overall trade union leader has certainly sought corporatist deals, and even got Green Room access in Seattle (along with reps of big Jo'burg capital, invited by the SA trade/industry minister, who is a former militant syndicalist and current French regulationist). Another key textile workers' leader was cited in Thomas Friedman's March 28 column, in support of trade liberalisation plus the controversial Social Clause. (It could be worse. There were more such corporatist trade unionists, of course, but many migrated into nicely-compensated positions within the state, or moved into Black Economic Empowerment investment companies.) The main route for corporatist elite-pacting in SA, a tripartite bargaining forum called Nedlac, has delivered so little since its establishment in 1993, that most of the small percentage of workers who are aware of this strategy have become extremely cynical.
On the bright side, this Wednesday we'll see a general strike of the Congress of SA Trade Unions (with its couple million members), aimed generally against high-unemployment, austerity policies (and corporate job-killing), which we all hope will keep consciousness at a high level. Further mass-based activism, as well as more surgical critiques of ANC macroeconomic policy, are warmly welcomed, but corporatism plus the nationalist stranglehold on union politics together makes a union-led upsurge quite unlikely in coming months and years. Until the ANC/SACP/Cosatu Alliance breaks, as it must eventually.
(Oh, apparently Bill Fletcher recently spoke at a labour law conference in Durban, and by all accounts was the most radical, inspiring speaker.)
Patrick Patrick Bond email: pbond at wn.apc.org * phone: 2711-614-8088 home: 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 South Africa work: University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management PO Box 601, Wits 2050, South Africa email: bondp at zeus.mgmt.wits.ac.za phone: 2711-488-5917 * fax: 2711-484-2729